This looks cool. A good strategy.

Good for big business, bad for consumers. Instead of establishing open standards its all about making people prisoners of ecosystems. I'm so sick of this whole ecosystem ********, i could puke right now.

I second that. "Ecosystems" are really tightened consumer control.

well windows ARM apps wont even run in windows x86

so microsoft just spreading ********.

if they talk about their shitty music/video service. they should know people dont buy phone to pay for contend.. rather pirate it.

That's where you are wrong. Ecosystem is a win-win situation for consumers and big business, but also for small business by selling apps and services within the ecosystem. What is bad for consumers is lack of competition. The competition need not be hard or fierce, it's enough with a potential alternative to keep the prices reasonable. The world of PCs circles around MS Windows, but Linux is an alternative and so is Apple. Even though both have tiny market shares compared with Windows, they pull hard.

Windows, or rather DOS, won the PC race because of killer applications like Lotus and Word Perfect in business (and home), games, and because the IPM PC was cloned making a market for subcomponents and new PC brands.

The situation today regarding mobile computing and communication is completely different. There are no killer applications tied to specific brands. There are no platforms that are better in gaming than others. There are no specific business application that also have synergies in the home, except basic phone functionality that you can get with the cheapest dumb phone. This is why RIM is heading to the sewers, artificially made nonsense mailing platform that has no future what so ever.

Android though, seem to have won the battle of the smartphone OS'es, mainly because old dumb phones users head directly to Android. With the Asus Eee Transformer (and honeycomb), Android also is showing that it can be usable also for business in MS Windows/PC land. It is actually easy to envision a (distant) future where Android rules everything, also the business-PC market. But MS will rule the business PC market for a long time yet, and all MS/Nokia has to do is simply to make tablets and smartphones with seamless integration with business and games, and they will carve out a large market share. That integration need only be a similar(ish) look and feel and access to the same online services.

I think with time it will become increasingly obvious how hopeless the MeeGo alternative was, and also how dead-end the Symbian alternative really is, and how important ecosystems are.

Edit: I don't think I made it clear enough? The point is, the ecosystem IS the killer application just like Word Perfect, Lotus, Wolfenstein, Doom, MS FS and so on for the PC. We may not like it, but it doesn't change anything. The Eee Transformer is a killer application all by itself, finally a tablet that is useful in the home and for business, but it would be nothing without the success of Android and the Google ecosystem. I would prefer a smaller version though, 7 inch screen, but it's good enough as it is.

Nah, those came later, after the race was won. Originally all the killer apps were written for CP/M.

That. Open hardware that you could buy and boot any OS you want on (having the potential to run CP/M was a major point, even if most people didn't do that at the end). The 8088 being cheap didn't hurt much either. The IBM PC-compatible won first, and (MS-, not PC-!) DOS followed simply by being the OS that came free with the PC.

You obviously did not get my point. Seamless integration of different devices and different services from different companies is possible if open standards are established. That is exactly what we should aim for. I don't want to buy everything from one brand/one manufacturer. I think this locking in in so called ecosystems its the biggest ripoff (or better will be) in the consumer electronics market ever. Its only goal is to establish monopolies and to eliminate smaller competitors. Fighting the google empire (hopefully google+ fails) with microsoft is like fighting fire with fire. Nokia and all other freedom-loving manufacturers and service-providers should put everything in establishing open standards, its what nokia always aimed for and what they're giving up now.

Open standard is all fine n dandy on commoditized hardware where the components are already plentiful in the market; but when it comes time for a brand new platform trying to muster marketing muscle to puncture a brand new market (a la MeeGo), then it's a case of "hey it's my marketing dollar, i should be getting the sales off them".

It's similar reasons to why maemo's (trademark n all) is tied up to Nokia, so their marketing dollars don't fuel the growth of chinese maemo knockoffs.

You really have no idea what MeeGo is? And what Nokia's planned ecosystem was? How much is MS paying you? You don't seem to understand anything anti-MS. MS is the holy grail for you.

The race was between Commodore, Apple and a few others, Oric etc. The IBM PC was extremely expensive in comparison, a factor 10 typically. But because of Word Perfect and Lotus, MSFS and so on, the only thing to have was a IBM or a clone. CP/M had nothing to do with this, at that time the world were all Commodore and Amstradt, Oric and so on while IBM was exclusively business. Commodore faught well, but had to give in eventually.